


Nothing So Sweet

by Phoenixflame88



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Baby Dragon, Bickering, Chance Meetings, Dragon Age: Inquisition Spoilers, Eluvians, F/M, Family Bonding, Father-Son Relationship, Grey Wardens, Mother-Son Relationship, Parent-Child Relationship, Single Parents, The Fade, Warden Alistair
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-01-13
Updated: 2016-02-09
Packaged: 2018-03-07 10:26:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 9,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3171452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phoenixflame88/pseuds/Phoenixflame88
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alistair never expected to see her again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. All things come round

_There's nothing in this world so sweet as love,_  
_And next to love the sweetest thing is hate!_  
  
_— Longfellow_

* * *

 

At least he could toss and turn on a soft mattress instead of a sodden bedroll. Alistair doubted it would help him sleep, but Skyhold was a world away from a mouldering cave. Between promises to himself he wasn’t going mad from a stupid magical song and the knowledge his order did a darkspawn magister’s bidding, he would’ve welcomed his old Warden nightmares.

But still. Warm bed, fresh clothes, enough food for his bottomless stomach…he appreciated the small things.

And there were people. Talking made the song between his ears easier to ignore. The Western Approach confirmed his worst fears and added new ones to the table, but it was easier than sitting in a cave waiting for Hawke to make his leisurely way to Crestwood. When Andraste’s Herald invited him to Skyhold, he hadn’t cared if she was a mad heretic. Promise of a hot meal helped too.

Alistair leaned against the battlements outside his door, studying the garden below. Dusk had just fallen and a few people milled around the garden while there was still twilight. Someone in the corner was cutting stalks of blood lotus.

Still, the song was there, on the edge of his hearing, half-lost on the wind. Sighing, slighting, he walked down there himself.

The Inquisitor wasn’t half as sinister as her title implied. She hadn’t once threatened his soft bits with sharp pointy things. The elf was cunning though. Even in Skyhold her green eyes swept everywhere until they stilled on someone like a fox on a lost chicken. Her smile was usually a prod to say more. Not like Clarel, all cool candor and quiet fervor, or the Warden, all cold silences and masked despondence.

Still, fresh air that didn’t reek of corpses and burning hovels…small things. It was nice to just wander, to ignore the music in his head and the looming siege on his brothers. He’d never even seen Adamant until he and Hawke tracked the magister wretch to the gates.

He’d almost walked a lap around the garden when he saw him. The boy sat against a stone pillar, under one of those roofed garden things the Orlesians must have a name for. In his hands he twisted a puzzle box of some kind, different-colored squares that turned and locked.

Nothing was odd about him, other than Alistair had to think to remember the last time he’d seen a living child. Probably months ago, at the first inn he entered after fleeing Montsimmard.

His neck prickled. Metal clinked behind him, too faint to be armor, too steady to be a rambler. A soft tread. The boy looked up, past Alistair.

“Well well, the brave, renegade Ser Warden.” That sinuous sing-song voice made him freeze. His training had him grabbing for the sword he hadn’t brought. But he didn’t lose sight of the boy, who stood up to kindly greet—

“Mother.”

_Mother of nightmares, maybe._

 


	2. If by chance it be shaken

Stomach churning, Alistair stopped groping for a sword after she strode past him to her son’s side. The boy glanced at him with eyes more amber than gold.

“Kieran.” The snapping magpie who mocked his every word and pecked his nerves raw laid a soft hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Do you know who this is?”

 _Kieran?_ Alistair wasn’t such an idiot as to think just a bedding ritual would counter the Archdemon. Otherwise everyone would do it. He knew something would come of it, but he’d expected a dragon monster before a lanky child of ten.

“He’s a Grey Warden.” His voice was soft, not shy.

Alistair almost smiled on reflex, but something felt…off. The boy’s brow furrowed as he leaned a bit closer, looking puzzled. Morrigan answered before he could speak again.

“Indeed. We fought together during the Blight.” A silent moment and she turned her hawk gaze on him, rolling her eyes like he’d used the wrong fork at an Orlesian dinner party. “He has a name, if he cares to share.”

“Er…I’m Alistair.”

The boy didn’t react to the name, not that his mother gave him the chance. A ruffle through his dark hair and she slipped beside Alistair.

“Finish your puzzle while you still have light, little man. I will be catching up with the Warden.”

The boy assented and made a little duck halfway between a nod and a bow. “Good to meet you, Ser.” He slid back down the stone pillar, twisting at the colored squares, but still glancing up, expression measured.

This close, Alistair saw a line or two had deepened her features, giving her a graver cast.

“Come.” Already walking, she nodded to a door at the side of the garden.

“He has…nice manners,” Alistair said as he caught up.

A small scoff came from deep in her throat. “Children learn little else of value in the Orlesian court.”

That made his mind stumble. “Orlais?”

Her grin used to make him think of a barn cat with her kill, letting a bird flutter by only because she was stuffed and lazy.

She pushed open the heavy door, conjuring up fire in the sconces. A storage room of some kind. A bench sat against the wall. Covered in pale sheets were tables, portraits, and either a gargantuan mirror or vainglorious painting. Morrigan closed the door behind her. Creaking old hinges didn’t unnerve him, but his skin prickled at the skitter of magic. Wards, most like. He heard nothing from outside.

The witch took a seat on the bench, crossing a leg and flicking a wrist at a dusty chair in the corner. Her cat smile was gone.

No, he would stand. It mattered little to her.

“You have questions, Orlais likely the least of them. I will answer some.” A bite of her old coolness. “But first, you will help me.”

Tension clenched down his spine. Of course there was no almost-friendly conversation with Morrigan, just plots he still couldn’t see.

“Help you _how_?” he almost growled. Alistair’s face was starting to warm. He’d halfways forgotten what a scheming harpy she was. No wonder she turned up in Orlais.

Oh, but the witch enjoyed this. “I am helping the Inquisitor stop Corypheus. ‘Tis likely a Warden has more knowledge of darkspawn than I.” Her eyes widened. “Or did the Warden-Commander make you play with blocks every time she called a meeting?”

“Only when I’d been mouthy,” he sniped, arms crossing. “That’s really it—scraps of Warden lore?”

A brow arched over one hawkish eye. “Was there some other way you hoped I would use you?”

 _Oh shut up._ Sparring with her was never worth it. “Ask if you want.”

She hadn’t asked him anything last time. That was the Warden. 


	3. Shall tomorrow find its place.

***  *  ***

  
Sold and settled on. Alistair had trudged to the witch’s lair with the unease of a horse about to bolt. Bruises and a throbbing knee from his duel with the teyrn made it worse.   
  
His pride tried to console him that he’d agreed to this deviant ritual, but pride was a liar half the time. He should’ve known after the Warden entered his chamber with a brittle smile, hoarfrost calm cracked like thrown crockery. She wasn’t asking; she was trying to persuade him before she broke his legs and dragged him there anyway.   
  
Slogged neck-deep in guilt. That’s how she trapped him. Shambling out of it was the only reason he agreed. Guilt for pretending not to see Duncan forced her into the Joining, for the Landsmeet, for a dozen other mistakes he’d forget years later. Inside the witch’s chamber fire crackled instead of magic, but Maker knew how long that would last.   
  
A short while later, Alistair was amazed he could rise for the occasion at all. He’d dredged up every busty scullion from the Templar dormitories, and the honey-haired lady knight with the rakish scar over her lip at Arl Eamon's tourney. He even thought of the pheasant-brained handmaidens Lady Isolde imported to Redcliffe.   
  
Evidently he had a paltry imagination. Or the witch above him was a malifcar about to do depraved things to his manhood.  
  
“Is this  _so_  difficult?” Winsome as an eel, she rolled her hips again, skin squelching against skin.   
  
One of the Templar recruits described it as wet heat and a blissful void. This just made his face red, while his cock had the better sense to retreat.   
  
“Demonic rituals, advancing darkspawn…” His voice sounded bolder than he felt. “Can’t think of a closer occasion.” He was ready to buck her right off.   
  
Annoyance, the witch’s only friend, curled her lip. Sweat was making her hair stick to her pale neck. Still she regained that harpy smile.  
  
“Loathing should make this easier.” She patted his cheek as he grimaced. “No wish to batter down my gate? You’ve been angry since you walked in.”  
  
He would’ve snapped something back, except he knew she was baiting him. Her pulse was too fast. Too desperate.   
  
“Maybe you’re just a terrible seductress.”   
  
Her smile flickered. “I think not. ‘Tis more likely because no one cheered at justice well-served when you cut the teyrn’s head off  _after_  he yielded. Or if the Warden must sacrifice herself, that she’ll chase your Duncan through the Beyond howling for a reckoning. Closer?” Her nails dug into his chest, making his nerves shudder. Alistair sucked in an icy-hot breath. The witch always loved to twist the knife. “Most likely, realizing that you hardly knew her at all.” 

His throat was too tight to snarl something back. The hearth kept out the chill—it wasn’t the cold that made his skin twitch. Anything he answered would just prove her right. He wouldn’t think about the Warden.   
  
Somehow he managed a dry laugh. Her weight on him was starting to make his battered ribs ache. The problem with twisting the knife was you had to get close. "You must regret making us kill your mother. Flemeth would’ve had some advice for this."

Her face froze. Then she drove her hand into the mabari-sized bruise on his collarbone.   
  
Red and white flared before his eyes, even after snapping them closed. He roared…screamed… _squealed_. Something between the three. Damn it all, he’d take the final blow himself. Gladly if it got him out of here. His whole chest throbbed, and that just made him remember Loghain. He jerked up to swing his legs from the bed and be gone from this mad ritual.   
  
The witch flew off with a yelp, landing on the thick rug with a thump and a hiss.   
  
“Alistair—” She knew he was bolting.  
  
“The archdemon would be better than this!”  
  
Pain wrenched down his leg as he braced to stand. Sitting too long made his knee stiff, and Wynne refused to touch it before it started healing on its own. The race here from Denerim made it worse. Now it slowed him down.

“ _Alistair!_ ” she hissed, twisting to her knees, grabbing at his own to keep him there. Or she just knew, as always, where to twist the knife.   
  
He yowled when her fingers bit into his knee. Jerking her hand back, her shifty gold eyes slid down to his leg. Maker, was she going to—  
  
Her touch was cold, fingertips light. He squinted, not sure if he should still be bracing for agony or trying to make a hobbling run for it. The pain was fading enough he'd probably manage.  
  
His skin prickled at the feel of magic. Not fire or hexes. Healing. A pale blue glow hummed at her fingertips, thrumming into his kneecap. The swollen heat seemed to cool.   
  
Morrigan was no healer, but he supposed living in the Wilds demanded a little healing magic.   
  
“Um…”   
  
The throbbing pain had faded to a dull ache and his knee looked closer to its proper size. Her hand trailed up to his bruised collarbone.   
  
“I was impatient,” she murmured.  
  
_As close to an apology as you’ll ever get, and it’s a terrible one._  Yet Alistair couldn’t stifle his relieved sigh when he stopped hurting so much. Evidently she took more from that than he meant, as she squirreled her way onto his lap before he’d opened his eyes long enough to stop her. His knee didn’t complain, or he didn’t notice it. He noticed…a pair of other things.   
  
Still assuaging his collarbone, she lightly squeezed his jaw until he looked at her.   
  
“Let us be honest this once.” Her voice was cool, less biting. “You can stop the Blight right here. Whatever happens, even if some nameless soldier kills the archdemon, that dragon will be the end of it.”  
  
Alistair breathed for words. Prepared to shove her off. Yet he breathed too long. She hooked her arms around his neck as her lips nuzzled his ear.   
  
“These won’t bother you for long. You’re hardly wounded, considering the battle.” He tensed. Of course she was worming her way closer, soothing him like a spooked horse, just until she could snap on a halter. He flinched away from her slithering whisper so she spoke into his throat instead. “I watched your duel. It made for a good story. A young recruit avenging kith and kin…”   
  
She’d be the only one who thought that. Everyone else acted like he was an Avvar savage when he took Loghain’s head off. Even the Warden.  
  
“You’re making—”   
  
Her breasts pressed against him as she tried to bear him down and her teeth grazed his ear. “A charming story, but ‘twas the blood and steel I most enjoyed. Nothing less than your due.”  
  
That sounded more like the barbaric wench. Maker, he shouldn’t be stirring, not for _this_.  _What pride hath wrought._  His pride when the bastard toppled, smothered when the Warden’s mouth twisted, looking at him like he wasn’t worth the air he breathed. 

Morrigan pushed him onto one forearm. Her calf grazed a bruise from a shield blow. He groaned at that, not because she reached down and twisted some way and suddenly she was hot and wet around him, rolling against his lap. Somehow it was easier to move with her…and not entirely awful.  
  
“They thought it was over when you fell,” she purred. A seditious chuckle as she met his building fervor. “Loghain though…” Her voice lowered. “’Tis thrilling when your enemy realizes he can die.”   
  
It was. Most of the Landsmeet probably cheered when the teyrn’s shield caught him in the ribs and he crashed to one knee. No one said a thing when he lunged into the traitor, caught him with his gauntleted fist. Loghain didn’t look so righteous then, when his smashed nose was snorting blood onto his breastplate. Alistair had already refused the throne; the bannorn had no use for him. His only guilt was the difficult place he left the Warden, and that made him seethe just as much.   
  
“Of course they’d fuss and cry when you took your due.” The tips of her teeth glimmered in the firelight. “Too much time scavenging Orlesian ways, though they’d never admit it.”   
  
He didn’t like blood and carnage. He liked justice. That everyone glowered the contrary—  
  
The witch nuzzled against him. He tried to kiss her cheek. What warped part of him wanted that he didn’t know. Just the wretched relief of knowing one person felt like he did, even if it was Morrigan, who was probably lying. She’d shifted and his lips met her pulse instead, just behind her jaw.   
  
A hiss or sigh. He felt her tense. His mouth drew harder and her breath hitched as she rocked.   
  
She dug her nails into his shoulder, murmuring against his cheek, "Be proud—few can take revenge and justice in the same stroke."  
  
He came with an embarrassing yelp. Maker save him. Her chest was close enough her rough breathing pushed against his own, their sweat mingling. It was like sinking into himself, wrung out and boneless. Something trickled where they met but he cared little as he fell onto the cool sheets.  
  
A part of him did care when she shoved away. It was suddenly cold, not the pleasant kind.  
  
The witch slithered back into her clothes. Her sweat-daubed temples, flushed cheeks, and a red spot high on her neck were the only suggestion he’d bedded her at all.   
  
She twisted the doorknob.  
  
“Wait.” He pushed himself up. Her eyes flicked to his, guarded and sharp once more. “Isn’t this your room? I’ll—”  
  
Her cool, shushing chuckle stopped his struggling. “’Tis not mine, but ‘tis unlikely the sleeper will resent a nubile Warden in their bed.”


	4. Ours is thine

If he and Clarel survived this tiff, there would be a talk on why the Wardens knew as much about darkspawn as any farmer who survived the Blight. If Weisshaupt knew more, they hadn’t deigned to share.

Some of her questions he could answer, mostly from experience and reports from the Amaranthine Wardens. Research ordered by his Warden, Alistair assumed, but he hadn’t stepped foot in Ferelden since the Blight. Fleeing Monstimmard, he’d gambled that Anora no longer posted outriders to riddle him with arrows if he staggered over the Frostbacks. It was over ten years, after all. A third of his remaining life if he didn’t step wrong down a staircase or get squished by a broodmother.

Time enough to understand his feelings were a tad delicate back then. The bannorn didn’t really care what happened at the Landsmeet as long it saved their lands from the Blight. The Warden wasn’t infuriated so much as irritated she’d have to renegotiate with the Queen. And, he didn’t feel so soft and squirming under the witch’s hawkish stare. Or perhaps she’d just filed down the sharpest edges of her murderous contempt. She regarded him with little response beyond her questions, head tilted slightly, making her neck seem longer. Finally, even her restraint couldn’t tamp down her incredulity.

“You and she knew most of that when you were floundering in the Wilds."

Suddenly Alistair was back in Ferelden, the months after Ostagar, when the nosy harpy would be forced to admit she didn’t understand every facet about the world. He had the nostalgia, at least. She’d lost that self-annoyed, begrudgingly quizzical look. Now she was just perplexed, as would anyone with half a brain.

He grinned. “Weisshaupt might have a library full of this stuff. I’ve never gotten an invitation though. When the Warden broke all contact with them, I was a pariah by association.”

“I thought she left Ferelden?”

“Eventually. Not before sending Amaranthine’s taxes to Anora instead of the Anderfels.” Even Clarel couldn’t resist chuckling at that. Her feelings toward Weisshaupt were…exasperated, to say the least. Now he’s not sure if Clarel proved their disregard or earned it.

The witch’s mouth twitched, and somehow they laughed together. Hers was more of a scoff but it reached her eyes. Laughing was scarce these days, when many of his friends were dead or vanished, and his brothers hunted him like a degenerate malificar. A first she'd laughed with him and not at him. Dire straits, when they could laugh at a mad world together.

“’Tis all I wanted to ask,” she said at last. “For now.” As if he’d told her anything of profound enlightenment. The witch straightened, frowned, and her voice hardened just enough he knew to attempt some delicacy. “You may ask what you wish.”

“What does he know about his…” The bizarre word balked on his tongue.

It wasn’t a sigh, though he saw her shoulders rise and fall. Hadn’t she changed clothes in ten years? Everything else was just a touch different. Her carmine lips, her dark-lined eyes. More so the way she sat silently, her claws sheathed until the proper occasion called. If anything about the Orlesian court was true—he did recall the Inquisitor saying something about an ‘arcanist,’ she’d hoarded enough patience to let men make fools of themselves, and look more foolish for it, without her baiting.

“I told him his father was a good man. That is all.”

“What is he?” he asked in one breath. There just wasn't a delicate way to ask if one's child was a lurking demon just waiting until it was tall enough to see over counters. 

Her brow rose. “A boy, obviously. Quiet and clever—a miracle, considering half his heritage.”

It snapped then, why the boy’s answer hit him wrong.

“He knew I was a Warden. I’m not wearing armor.”

She smiled, more brittle than the bloodthirsty little grins he remembered. No less promising bloodshed though. “Only you would consider being observant a flaw.”

“The ritual—”

She raised a hand to silence him. He braced for a hex. “So quick to judge? Your Wardens take thieves and murderers.” Her eyes narrowed. “You _could_ spend time with him and decide for yourself.”

“Wait, _what_?” Thankfully, his blossoming shame was cut short.

She shrugged with irritating daintiness. “I would not be averse. The Inquisition marches in a sennight. Before Adamant, you have a choice. After Adamant, you may be dead.”

 _Little guess which one you’d prefer._ Alistair pondered begging the Inquisitor for a room on the other side of the castle. Or pleading with Leliana for a warm corner in the rookery. Of course, his mind and mouth never mastered teamwork.

“I’d…like that.” Would she offer this so easily if the boy was a demon? Alistair’s chest tightened, just a little. “But don’t tell him who I am.”

Her brow rose again, chin angled in suspicion. “So ashamed of my spawn, or still clinging to your chaste reputation?”

He'd never noticed the witch’s trick for baiting honesty until now.

“As you so cheerfully said, I might catch a dismal case of arrow to the face. No sense in him knowing, on the off-chance he likes me.”

“He may puzzle it out himself. He is a canny lad.”

Not much he could do about that, beyond impromptu disguises and false alibis. Alistair shrugged. “Even so. Please.”

She nodded slowly and stood, dusted herself off. “Kieran will be in the garden tomorrow.” She was already snuffing the sconces and nulling the wards. “He likes stories.”

He swore he heard her chuckle as she left, but that was a silly thought.

 


	5. Darkness again and a silence

*** * * * ***

Alistair landed hard enough to crack all his teeth and break half his bones. Thankfully he landed in water. He couldn’t keep his mouth shut—could he ever?—when the black sea slapped the breath from his lungs. Water poured in, and he coughed and sputtered even as he gasped for air. Somehow he kicked his way to the surface.

Everything burned. _Wetly._ His lungs burned for air, his legs from the weight of his armor, and every little cut and scratch from salt water. He went where the waves pushed, until his feet brushed the Fade’s rocky shore. The water stopped helping once he was waist-deep and he crawled the rest of the way to dry land.

At least the salt made it easy to throw up all the brackish water. He rolled away, but right now he saw no reason to get up. Even if he could. Judging by the dark cliffs above him, he’d been tossed right off.

_Falling, almost as bad as swooping._

He’d imagined death by squishing, or a giant maw biting him in half…not the big ugly spider flinging him across half the Fade after a few good stabs. He still bought Hawke and the Inquisitor time, and at least that damn demon had shut up. Not the worst day he’s ever had.

Blood trickled down his neck. He tried to staunch it. The Nightmare, the flying squid monster version, had missed his windpipe, but the tear felt like a gaping lash.

It hurt worse than his last time in the Fade. Ten years ago, an impaled hand and broken arm were annoying aches. The witch had rolled her eyes as he prodded the ragged hole, while Sloth flopped in its death throes.

_“The Fade bends to perception. You have never broken your arm.”_

_“How would you know?” She was always pretending to know everything._

_“’Tis doubtful you would be standing there so manfully otherwise.”_

This was no ensorceled dream. His neck continued to bleed, and sprawling here was giving his aches and bruises time to catch up. The waves didn’t even sound right—they swelled as high as summer storms, but there were no frothing crests, no furling crash, just a lapping sound like he was on the pier at Lake Calenhad. Didn’t there need to be a moon for this anyway?

_Idiot, it’s still the Fade._

If he passed out from bloodloss, what would happen when he dreamed? Would he be stuck guarding his own body? Questions for the dour elf, or the preening Tevinter. Not him. Not here. He shouldn’t be here.

 _“You can't even face your own failures.”_ Really, the demon tried pulling that old card?

This was, after all, the second time he’d served everyone best by stepping out of the story. The second time choosing the Wardens tasted more bitter than the tainted blood of the Joining. And this was the thousandth time nothing good ever came from Alistair standing within a dozen miles of magic.

Except once. Maybe twice.

The splotching in his vision was nothing good either, but for the first time in a long while he was starting to feel peaceful.

The boy seemed…kind. Strange, probably dangerous, but kind. A miracle, considering half his parentage. Alistair couldn’t help his laugh, though it ached in his ribs. A miracle the boy was even created in the first place. That had required nothing good, magic the least of it.

Alistair knew he was toeing the line between sleep and wake.

The Wardens took in sixthborn sons and gutter rats, and make them realize they could be heroes. Even by his Warden vows that felt more like a choke-chain every day, it was unworthy to brand the boy as anything before he proved himself.

 _If he has a dragon soul in him?_ Memory made his head swim, enough he sat up to keep from retching. Before the archdemon, the last dragon he fought had also plucked him from Ostagar’s slaughter.

To hell with here, he wanted to see his son again. Maybe he wanted to see the boy’s mother too. _Idiot, you said as much—thought as much—before Adamant._

The water and rocks around him were real. Real as the Fade got. They’d gotten here through a rift. The Inquisitor couldn’t have closed them all.

He tore off strips from the tunic under his armor to wrap his neck and staunch the bleeding between his ribs. For all his head hurt, there was no more Calling, no murmur of a wordless song. The silence would be blissful if he didn't feel trampled by a horse. 

If it took sugary hopes to rouse him, that’s what it took. Alistair heaved himself to his feet with a groan, pain slicing across side, legs leaden. No idea how long of a walk he was in for, but it wouldn’t begin any other way than a first step. 

*** * * * ***

It took time to plan a siege. It took more time to plan the siege of an ancient fortress guarded by magic, demons, and possibly an archdemon. Alistair was surprised Leliana never told the Inquisitor he was better at fighting and witty repartee than strategy.

He wasn’t _ignoring_ the boy. His days were spent earning a headache in the war room. A free evening and Varric had to mention his duel with the new Arishok to a hall of guests—that story took hours to whittle back to a resemblance of the truth. A clear afternoon and Hawke was on his heels to track down Carver.

He had little time for much else. The boy and he’d barely exchanged a dozen words. Morrigan must’ve preferred it that way. The week before Adamant was gone hours after it began. The evening before they marched, dark had settled when he trudged back to his room.

“Avoiding my son won’t make him good or evil, only mire you in the nausea of not knowing.” The witch was furled in shadows by his door.

He thought he’d seen a bat as he climbed the stairs.

“The Inquisitor locked me in her war room—you didn’t merit an invitation?”

She didn’t blink. “Kieren asked if he would see you. ’Tis your choice, of course.”

The witch never offered an unweighted choice...

...Inevitably, he was soon sitting on a thick carpet in a strange room, prodded into tales of the Wardens—his own traipse through Kirkwall during the Qunari invasion. Keiran sat cross-legged across from him, hands idle, fingers dark from charcoal. His sketch was between them, set on a slanted lectern.

The witch ignored them both, having taken roost in a heavy armchair, scowling at a monstrous tome, her legs tucked under.

“After we cut our way through the eastern gate, news caught up about Hawke, the city’s new hero. They say he nearly died in a duel with the Arishok.”

Better to talk of heroes than the nagging pit in his stomach the mornings after, his Warden nightmares bulwarked by sobbing tailors and terrified bakers, after he and his orders left the city to its bloody end.

_“Saving yourself for the next Blight?” Carver’s older brother called out as the Wardens walked away, his grin a jackal’s snarl. “Must be just around the corner.”_

Better to tell stories he had no part of. The ones he did had a way of losing their gleam.

“Grey Wardens had griffins.” Kieran looked at him, head tilted curiously.

Oh, the didn’t seem to get the fundamentals of inflecting a question. Even if it was a good one. Made-up stories were even better than old ones. They didn’t make him wonder if any part of them was true. His grin probably gave him away.

“Had?” Alistair asked in surprise. “The Warden-Commander’s griffin would be hurt. He’s very fussy.”

The boy smiled at that. What’s the use of being young if you can’t believe a good story?

“In battle though,” Alistair continued, sounding thoroughly awed. “He dives in a rush of grey and gold feathers, tearing genlocks in half, swiping ogres’ heads off. A pity his nerves go to water any other time. Thunder?” He shook his head. “ _Ghastly._ Everyone flees the area below.”

Keiran still smiled, but it seemed different. Keener, eyes less wide. A knowing smile more than the excited kind. His eyes were already older than the rest of him—it finally made sense in Alistair’s mind, what marked the boy as odd.

“That’s what they tell us, anyway. To remind everyone griffins once protected the sky.”

Morrigan’s son leaned close, voice dropping like he knew a scandalous secret. “And once more.” He smiled wider.

His stomach went cold. _Oh, just the kind of secret every growing boy tucks away._ The witch had stopped reading—he felt her eyes peering over her book. Alistair’s neck prickled even more.

“They will?”

“They were lost.” The boy shrugged, like it was an obvious old story he’d read before. His smile softened. “Lost things are found again. Aren’t they, Mother?”

Morrigan unfurled from her chair, setting down the wrist-cracking tome with a heavy clunk. It looked calculated in its casual poise.

A small smile tipped one side of her lips. “If one makes an effort to find them again.” She unlocked the door’s heavy deadbolt. “Ser Alistair leaves for Adamant tomorrow, with nary a griffin to fly him there. Spilling the blood of former comrades ‘tis always an exhausting task. Bid him goodnight, dear one.”

Her son obeyed, already reaching for his charcoal. Alistair’s back cracked as he stood. It gave him a vantage over the half-finished drawing.

All Morrigan’s detached fluttering only unsettled him more. The cold night was a relief, even if it didn’t clear his head. His room was across the garden.

He’d climbed the stairs and reached his door when she called his name. He pretended not to hear, not that it stopped the witch from following him into his room before he could think to slam the door in her face.

Alistair went to light a candle, yelping when all three popped to life. They danced as she shoved the door closed.

“What _happened_?” He rounded on her. That sick feeling curdled in his stomach. He knew. Ignoring a truth never made it go away.

The witch leaned against the door. He saw on her face when she considered cutting obliviousness. _You told a story to your son, Alistair. You bonded with your boy. We shared what optimistic fools might call a ‘family moment.’_

_I’ll throttle her, even if I have to fight through one of her ice storms._

Alistair wasn’t deluded enough to believe he frightened her with a deathly glare. Still, he saw too as that look of gleeful sparring retreated. Closing her eyes, meeting his again, they were here. Only here, only now. Not in camp, not in Redcliffe.

“When the Warden slew the archdemon, its tainted soul would have killed her. Instead, Kieran carries Urthemiel’s soul beside his own.”

Facing a truth never made it kinder. It was aching and hollow to have almost believed…something.

“So he’s part archdemon.” He closed his eyes, but it only made him picture rotting dragons.

The boy was drawing something with wings. _Poor dead Uncle Dumat? Cousin Zazikel?_

She was cat-soft over the floor, her clinking necklace giving her away. He looked up as her hand clamped around his wrist. Her nails dug into his skin.

“The archdemon was a tainted Old God, not a demon.”

“Like that’s any better!” She looked livid enough to flay him, but Alistair didn’t care. “Evil dragon-thing or…or whatever it was, it was stuck in the ground for a reason—”

“Fool!” She dropped his arm with a disgusted sound. “Ten years of fighting darkspawn and you question nothing?” A bitter laugh. It sounded almost pained. “What do you see? Is he tainted like you? A demon like the Arl’s son?”

“He’s…” Alistair wouldn’t be planning to attack the order he’d spent a third of his life following if he questioned nothing. “He’s odd. Knows things he shouldn’t.” _Or you judged too much from too little…_ His frantic anger was wavering, as much as he’d prefer to stoke it, keep it banked for Adamant and whatever he might have to do. He forced himself to breathe. “I guess we do too. You probably a bit more.”

She scoffed. “And does he seem like a devourer of souls?”

Neither did Anora. Looks were tricky. Then again, he’d expected a knife in his back years ago, just in case he got any funny ideas in exile. So far it hadn’t come. As for the boy, if it was just odd smiles or old eyes, by rights he should be unnerved by half the Wardens he knew. A part of him felt like a superstitious grandmother from the Recliffe’s village, while another part snarled he had every reason to be. 

“No. Not yet anyway. But…a Tevinter-worshiped dragon?”

“Urthemiel was—is—the god of beauty.”

 _Didn’t look very pretty when we fought it._ He held that one in though. Somehow some of the Wardens considered him a mediator.

“Alistair.” She was looking at him with a rare lack of derision. “You are not wrong to wonder. Let me show you.”

_Does he glow when he sleeps or something?_


	6. A night's repose

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys! Thanks so much for the encouragement and follows. Please let me know what you think; I'm always trying to improve :-).

He followed her along the cold ramparts and into the castle proper. Deeper into the stronghold the echo changed, almost to a pleasant tune as they reached a dark set of stairs. Alistair hadn’t realized they were going down. He tried to stay on higher ground. The Calling was its loudest at the forge, making the dwarf-girl’s questions about Warden mages, dreams, and darkspawn nightmares even more incomprehensible. He’d never known a smith who could talk so fast while hammering dents out of armor.

Absently Morrigan swiped at a sconce along the stairway, fire feathering at her touch.

She turned to quirk a brow. “Stop humming. You have no voice for it.”

He felt it in his throat before he could insist he wasn’t. Maybe she realized too, as she continued down the steps without waiting for a retort.

The stairs led to a small library, draped in torn cobwebs like a broken seal. A large book with ludicrously small text was already open. She flipped it closed, picking a smaller one with more pictures than words.

“There is no inherent goodness in beauty,” she said, turning her pale neck to look at him. “But if you care to see what has been lost, look here.”

Alistair stepped beside her, an old chair between them. The book’s pages were heavy with art. A painting of a city, towers pale and graceful. Orlais would’ve stuck gold along the trim, but these stood higher with unadorned curves. If the artist was accurate, the stone had a violet shimmer in the sunset.  Other buildings were darker, lines sharper, but somehow they seemed complements.

“A dragon architect built that?” Alistair snorted. “He drew the plans with his tail? Carried stones in his mouth?”

Her head had dipped. He’d swear she bit back a smile as she turned the page. “Spoke his wishes to a priest, I imagine. Perhaps a gift of cultivation. That was Marnas Pell, before the Fourth Blight.”

She leaned over the tome, distracted by the next picture. Apart from the sconces’ low crackle it was quiet.

In the silence, the song slithered again through his head, melodic and lithe and not at all angry he’d ignored it for so long, only happy he listened now. Alistair rubbed his temples, but it never helped. _Damn._ He took the empty chair. The bloody song had driven him from the forge, but even there it was softer. Maybe the Inquisitor had it wrong and the Joining was killing him early.

The sorceress jerked her chin. “I said stop—”

Alistair felt more than saw the annoyance vanish as her eyes narrowed and her cool hand clasped his jaw. Her face was close, a hawk staring down another beast.

“ _Hsst!_ ” Not at him—he’d made sure he stopped humming.

He barked a laugh louder than he meant. Morrigan snapped back half-confused, half-curious.

“Did you just tell the Taint to hush?”

Her smile had a touch of that smirk he’d always wanted to swipe off. He wasn’t Leliana, who could name every thought that crossed a card-player’s face. Maybe the witch was still laughing at him. Maybe he didn’t care.

Either she shifted or he straightened. Somehow his lips pressed against hers. Blame the Calling, or his nerves before Adamant. Blame her mouth for being softer than it looked, for having nothing caustic to say. She tensed. Or was about to slap him with a fireball.

Alistair pulled away, just long enough to see her eyes still glittered. Then her cool steel fingers hooked around his warm neck and the clash of hot and cold snaked down his spine as she kissed him back. He couldn’t have escaped if he wanted to.

“Quieter?” she asked as she loosened her hold. 

No, the song was always there, but he hardly heard it beneath his thrumming blood and her uneven breath.

He shouldn’t be here. He shouldn’t be with _her_. _Then what are you doing? Ha._ He hadn’t known what he was doing since he fled the Wardens. _No sense in wondering now._

“For the moment…” he answered before he could think better of it, grinning before he could help it.

Her own grin turned feral.

A life sworn to fight monsters and slowly die of corruption dulled chastity’s gleam long ago. No one would mistake him for Antivan, but ten years had a smattering of cold nights and victories with too much wine. Wardens weren’t _always_ a dour lot.

As Morrigan sank onto his lap, an ominous wooden creak made him think better of the chair. He stood, lifting her onto the sturdier table. She shoved the tomes into corners, sent a candlestick clanging against dusty stone. Her legs dragged him close. Kissing her neck he smelled cedar and bracken, not powder or bergamot. The witch hadn’t left the wilds.

But the candlestick echoed up the stairs, between his ears. Some sense—some ear-reddening vision of the dour elf or the charming diplomat wandering in—made him still her hands at his waist, pause long enough to say, “My room’s not far.”

Her brow arched. “Still one hand clinging to the Chantry’s robes? There is nothing wrong with—”

He stopped her with a kiss. “I promise to thank you properly.”  

The witch huffed, but her smile quirked in curiosity, and he knew he had her.

Alistair didn’t know if they stumbled past anyone on their way to his chamber. He’d never quite remember how they wound up without a scrap of clothing between them. Except her slapping his hands away when he tried to unclasp the gorget she called a necklace.

Not everything was a blur. She rolled her eyes and shoved him with her knee when he couldn’t help touching the silver lines across her flat belly. Her thighs wrapped around his ribs, riding him however they lay. Until he made good on his promise. He’d never heard her make _that_ sound before.

Sometime—several times—later, he wasn’t sure for a moment if he was dreaming. She rose from the bed, sinews flexing down her back, lean as a lioness. The candles glittered like dark icicles and the hearth scarcely smoldered.

His arms felt almost too pleasantly heavy to lift but he managed to take her wrist. Gooseflesh prickled under his palm. She looked over, reserved once more but not sharp or cool.

“‘Tis better you are well-rested for battle.”

“The bed’s warmer with you in it.”

A flick of her wrist and the hearth glowed to life. Even a Witch of the Wilds couldn’t deny a warm bed was preferable to a frigid hour of the wolf. His drowsy mind thought too late about why she might be leaving, and he felt a twinge of guilt.

“Oh, is he—”

A small smile played on her lips. “Make up your mind, Alistair. Is my son a dragon or a delicate lamb?” Gently, for her, she plucked his hand off her arm. “Your march to Adamant is my time to study Corypheus. I cannot pluck lost knowledge from thin air. This time of night is best for quiet.”

“That’s…important.” His voice a mumble, but only from sleepiness. Bizarre enough they’d come together at all. Warm snuggles and playing the little spoon would’ve made him suspicious of demons.

She stopped at his bedside after she dressed. Her hand on his chest was warm for once. Her forehead leaned close to his, voice was a lilting murmur. “Something you said has given me a thought. Come back and I will tell you if it was a good one.” Her mouth was soft, though she nipped his bottom lip before she straightened.

He would’ve kissed her back or said something foolish. But sleep bore him down. Warmly, like a hot spring, not a toppling weight like a sleep hex… _oh_. When her magic brushed so lightly, maybe not all hexes were cruel.

Waking later that morning, he was alone but not lonely. However little he'd slept, he felt more rested than he had in years. 


	7. Forever and a day

Alistair didn’t know what mages saw in this place. If the Fade wasn’t deadly it was creepy, and if it wasn’t creepy it was boring.

No sign of the Nightmare, or anything else. He’d heard somewhere that if a demon fell from power, there was a fight for who controlled its demesne. Maybe they were too busy warring to notice him.

His wounds hurt but they weren’t bleeding much, and he’d found his sword washed up further down the unnatural beach. Small victories, when the big ones didn’t look so good.  

No idea where he was going. The place seemed to change on its own anyway. A wide desk against a stone wall looked suspiciously like Arl Eamon’s, except with scorched and splintered wood. Later he stopped at a pillar, wondering where he’d seen it before. Unease tightened around his throat. Unease, but not his, along with anticipation and quavering hope. Ostagar. A small piece packaged just for him. Alistair hurried on as fast as his ribs allowed and the feelings rolled away like water off oilskin.

The sky never changed so no idea how long he’d been walking. _What if it’s days? Minutes?_

He walked until his feet were tired then sat and dozed. It didn’t feel like sleeping. Just…odd. When he came to he continued. Alistair lost track of how often he did this. No idea if the water he made himself drink from pockets in the rock was actually water, but it took away his thirst. Not so much thirst as the idea of thirst. His wounds hurt but they didn’t have a trace of infection. There was no heat, no cold either. No dry air or blustery wind. A half-formed world, real enough but scraped of details.

No wonder the demons wanted out.

He wandered through graveyards, the names he recognized making him stare straight ahead; he walked past a statue of a mabari, dying on the claws of a carved lion. The feeling of eyes at his back always made his neck prickle, but any peeping demon would’ve attacked if it stood a chance.

It seemed years or days or hours before he heard a sound besides his own footsteps. This part of the Fade looked like a canyon or mountain pass, with branching paths and inconsiderate rock formations. They distorted the sound. Alistair still thought he’d heard a voice.  

 _Demon_ was his first thought. Imagining things his second. Breathing too much pulled at the cut across his ribs. Another call, too distorted to make out, but tenor was disquietingly familiar.

 _Morrigan?_ Maybe the Nightmare had a few distant cousins making a claim on its realm. Green was his way out though, but he’d never seen it. No rifts. No demons getting dragged through them. And why her of all people?

He’d thought they comfortably loathed each other. That was the safe, familiar way of it. The time or two they’d said something softer during the Blight, well, sometimes you care about the people you hate—you’ve invested part of your heart, after all. _Care enough to bed them so you can sleep a little better?_

_“Kieran!”_

Morrigan’s voice clattered along the stone paths, barely intelligible, but he heard her footsteps. Damn Fade couldn’t even get echoes right.  

Alistair walked faster, legs aching, and called out her name. Cracks in the ground nearly sent him arse-over-tits. He stumbled against the rocky wall, the screech of his pauldron setting his teeth on edge and pulling at the scab on his neck. The path curved. The footsteps scuffled closer. Rounding the turn, Morrigan almost knocks him over. Alistair caught her arm just before she wrenched to a halt. His mistake. She twisted her wrist at just the right angle that  it wrenched free and had him by the throat with her other hand, her fingers ice-cold.

He yelped. Her magic froze the blood around his fresh-torn scab and now it burned like a brand against his neck.

“ _Alistair?_ ” It came as a snarl, in a tone he’d never heard before.

“Promise,” he gritted out. A tap of her fingers and the ice melted, and he pulled back to a safer distance.

If it was a sneaky demon, it’d gotten so many details wrong it couldn’t be anyone but his witch. Her face was bone-pale, the tendons in her neck so taut he could see her rapid pulse. And she was _here_. In the Fade for real.

“Keiran’s _here_.” It's almost a keen. He must’ve looked clueless—he was—for she grabbed him by the collar of his surcoat and yanked him close. The magic crackled at her fingertips.

“How could—”

“If he’s lost to me now…”

“—We’ll find him.”

She tore away, taking a different fork on the path, but not before he saw the half-healed bruise on her cheek. Alistair followed at a half-limp. The way ahead seemed to pulse, shudder, but no way was he losing track of the witch who pranced into the Fade like it was Hinterlands. Magic still shivered around her. _You’re in the Fade, idiot._ A mage could hide in the real world, magic thrumming too low to feel, even for a Templar. Magic sparked here, pure and unfettered. But if Morrigan’s was a dangerous crackle, they were running toward a brewing storm. _Demons?_ Nothing seemed—

 “No…it can’t be…” Morrigan stopped short, grabbing his arm before he could go further.

“Mother!” The boy stood there unhurt, turning at their approach. But not alone.

“ _Mother_ …” the witch growled.

 “ _You?_ ” Alistair wasn’t sure if shock or horror cut his breath more.

She knelt in front of the boy, armored and crowned, but he’d know her anywhere. The last time Alistair had seen the Witch of the Wilds she was a dragon. Before that she was a waspish old crone who’d forced her daughter upon them. After she’d saved his life at Ostagar. Part of him wanted to blurt an apology for helping the Warden slay her, but even he knew that was a bloody unhelpful thing to say. 

At last Flemeth rose. “Now, isn’t this a surprise?” mused the witch incapable of surprise. “The unlikely parents pushed together as the world stands on the precipice. You warm a grandmother’s withered heart.”

She was like a lioness looking over the gory flank of her kill, a lack of hunger the only reason he wasn’t dead. No more a wrinkled old biddy. Her white mane curved like horns and her armor glittered hard as dragonscale. Kieran stood right beside her.

Morrigan was snapping back with a fury he’d never heard, her mother eying her with cold amusement. A sound skittered further off and he glanced for it, but no demon could be more dangerous than the Witch of the Wilds.

“I know how you plan to extend your life wicked crone!” Morrigan snarled. “You will not have me and you will _not_ have my son!”

“Before anyone has anyone _quite_ yet—” The voice came with footsteps. The Inquisitor approached, bearskin coat flapping at her heels, the dour elf-mage at her side. _Is the Fade a carnival attraction now?_ She stopped stock-still, green eyes wide. “— _Alistair?_ ”

“Inquisitor!” Morrigan barked. “This witch will steal my son to extend her life.”

Alistair’s chest went cold. He’d forgotten that. And now the ancient witch stood next to Kieran. His hand slowly felt for his sword. He’d never seen the Herald so surprised. _Or haggard._ Her arm bent in a sling and her face seemed too pale. No, not quite. _Stark_ —then he realized—those green antler tattoos under her eyes were gone.

The smile that crossed Flemeth’s face was all knives and blood. “How considerate the one who drank from my Well comes to me.”

It was nonsense to Alistair, but Morrigan froze. “You…are _Mythal_.” She said it like a writ of execution.

He couldn’t say if the blood drained faster from the Inquisitor’s face or Morrigan’s. Or his. It made him remember, make sense of something. The Warden never told him precisely why they were hunting the witch’s mother. To reclaim a book, he’d thought. A rotten reason for killing one’s kin, even if she was Flemeth. Of course he was wrong. It was the witch herself then. Now it was the boy?

The Inquisitor’s hand went to her throat. “But you’re human.”

“You’re _dead_ ,” said the elf beside her.

“I am neither, entirely.”

“Because you feed on your daughters like a parasite!” Morrigan snarled with the spitting fury of one terrified.

Flemeth ignored her, looking the Inquisitor’s way with a bitter smile. “Once I was a woman, calling out in the lonely darkness for justice. And she came to me. Little more than a wisp of memory. I have carried Mythal through the ages, seeking the justice denied to her.”

“What kind of justice?” the Inquisitor croaked.

Alistair had seen that fading-light look before, on another’s face. Realizing that whatever came, she was chained to it.

“A reckoning that will shake the heavens.”

The dour elf took the Inquisitor’s hand, his face so focused on Flemeth it must’ve been instinctive, but she snatched it back like he’d burned her.

“Am I to be _your_ herald now?” Maybe it was anger from a lover’s spat, or she only had enough patience for semi-divine creature. The weakness in the elf’s mouth was gone. Eyes not hard, but shifting in calculation. Of course, if Alistair saw her true face, doubtless a bloodthirsty sorceress could too.

Flemeth was saying something back, but Alistair was distracted by that itchy, clutching feeling someone was about to do something very stupid.

It should’ve been four against the sorceress, to defend the child if nothing else. He doubted that. It used to irritate him when he couldn’t understand the unsaid story. He didn’t have a diplomat’s eye. Rising blood, shifting alliances, new-made pacts—it made him confused as much as a newborn goat.

Warden-Commander Clarel of all people had straightened him. It didn’t matter if he picked up the story or not. Know just enough to be where your sword is in most need. Usually to the right of the likeliest person to draw one.

Now, though…Morrigan seemed a breath from tearing new rifts in the Fade. The Inquisitor looked as ready to stab her elf friend in the neck as the Witch of the Wilds. The grim mage…Alistair had no idea what he was likely to do, and if he could guess, the elf didn’t know either.

“I’m sorry, Mother.” Kieran’s voice rose above the thrumming magic and broiling tempers. “She said now was the time.”

“He is not your pawn!”

“Because he is yours? Was that not why you agreed to his creation?”

“That was then. Now…he is my son.”

“I have to go, Mother.”

“You don’t have to do anything.” He’d wandered to the center of a frozen lake and now heard the first crack. Well, if someone was about to do something stupid, it might as well be him. He looked the ancient witch in the eye. “You’re not taking him from his mother.”

Flemeth’s laugh rang all the way to the Black City. “The other pawn speaks, besotted by my cruel daughter. After she all but forced herself upon you?”

 _Maker dammit don’t blush don’t blush don’t—shit._ Poor luck he hadn’t lost quite enough blood to look pallid. Alistair shrugged. _Might as well be me. Bow out of the story one last time._ “Take my blood if you want.”

Flemeth’s eyes were hooded, her snarling grin uneven. “Your blood had promise, once. An odd coupling of elvhen, dragon, mage…but it is tainted and dying now. This boy’s destiny was snatched from the jaws of darkness.”

“Alistair,” Morrigan hissed, “ _Stop it._ ”

“Ser Alistair—” Kieran walked closer. Flemeth didn’t try to stop him. “I’m glad you live.”

There was nothing else Alistair could do. Would do.

“Very well,” Flemeth said to her daughter with an indulgent sigh. “ _Give_ the boy to me and I will never see you again. Keep him, and you will never be safe. I _will_ have my due.”

“He stays with me. Possess _me_ if you want, but you will never have him.” Her voice had gone thick, keening. “I will never be the mother you were to me.”

Flemeth stepped closer. There was a look to her eye that scared him. It wasn’t rage or bloodlust. It was…ancient. Far older than the Witch of the Wilds. It saw across kingdoms that were dust now, and it had no pity.

Before Alistair could let himself consider the ways she could splatter him across the Fade, his sword was in hand.

“You won’t take a thing from her until I’m dead.”

It wasn’t a sacrifice for love, not quite. Just a bone-deep certainty there was no other choice he would make about the boy and his mother.

Flemeth didn’t walk further than Kieran, who only looked up at her with a small smile. Her gauntlets were dark steel, all sharp and twisted metal, but the one that took the boy’s hand was gentle. She glanced at Alistair, her eyes the yellow of hawks and vipers. When she spoke, he had the off feeling he was the only one who could hear.

“This is not your trial, Warden. But well said.”  


End file.
